Dungeon Practicum Time (2)
"All right, all right, everyone! The day has finally come!"
After four days of intensive lectures on dungeons with Professor Seres, dungeon practicum time had arrived.
I’d prepared hard enough that I thought I wouldn’t really feel anything special, but now that the day had actually crept up on me, my heart was thudding in my chest.
What would a dungeon look like, really, after all the theory I’d memorized so diligently?
What sort of things would happen, how much could I grow, and what if something went wrong and it turned into a disaster? That kind of anticipation and anxiety always came as a set.
"The members of every team have now been decided, and the group chat will be created shortly, so be sure to accept the invite! Dungeon practicum will begin this afternoon, so please make sure you’re fully prepared by then."
With that final announcement from Han Seohwa, the homeroom professor of Wolchun Class, I was given three hours of free time.
As if we were being told to finish all our conversations with our teammates within that window.
- Buzzzzz
The moment Professor Han Seohwa closed the classroom door, my bracelet began vibrating familiarly, as though it had been waiting for the cue.
I pressed it, generated a hologram, and tapped the invite link to the group chat.
You have been invited to "Team Chat Room 9" by Han Seohwa.
My team was Team 9, a middle-ranking group in Wolchun Class. There were only three of us total, which made it feel as though one person was missing, considering most teams had four members.
After being invited into the group chat, Miel Norison was the first to send a message.
Usually the team leader’s name was listed first, so he probably hadn’t expected to be the one.
Still, he was one of the top students. He’d even said himself that he always welcomed friendly matches, but the fact that no one had dared challenge him suggested he was strong enough that ordinary students couldn’t even begin to imagine fighting him.
And then there was Lee Seona beside him.
Hmm... honestly, I didn’t really know her all that well.
The only things I knew were that she belonged to the same circle as Han Riae and Yoon Hwayeon, and that she was a support-major student with a unique ability related to enchantment.
Professor Han Seohwa had said that when teams were formed, the members would be matched by scores, so if Miel was the front-line attacker who fought head-on and smashed through monsters, and Lee Seona was the supporter backing him up...
Wait. Then does that make me the guide?
To explore or clear a dungeon, you needed at least a three-person party.
There was the person handling combat, the person supporting the party, and the person who identified the dungeon’s layout and the monsters’ positions while preparing for what might happen next based on the dungeon’s basic characteristics. That was the guide.
Most guides were hunters, but since many of them didn’t fight directly, it was also common to bring in civilians who had a deep knowledge of dungeons even if they had no combat power at all.
And I was the person who fit that role for Team 9.
I’d already shown I had some degree of fighting ability through my spar with Miel, but since no one could yet tell exactly how strong I was, it seemed they’d assigned me the guide position for now.
After sorting out my thoughts, I packed my things. All the many items Professor Seres had given me were already inside the spatial ring he’d gifted me.
Anything stored using spatial space was worth millions of won, so just looking at the high-grade artifact on my finger made it impossible to guess just how wealthy Professor Seres really was.
And when he’d handed me the ring, he’d said, "I already have more than I need, so take one."
Seriously...
I let out a small breath of admiration and finished packing, checking one more time to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind.
After marveling at the ring’s vast internal space, I left the classroom and headed for the location Lee Seona had sent me.
.
.
.
I wove quickly through the people around me and reached my destination. There, a familiar head of hair turned toward me, and its owner waved me over.
"Parang! Over here, over here!"
The meeting place was a café located nearest to the dungeon entrance where we would be practicing that afternoon.
Apparently our team was the only one assigned to this dungeon, and since the second- and third-years had already gone out for outside activities, the only people here were Miel, me, and Lee Seona.
"Sorry. There were a lot of people on the way, so I had to take a detour and ended up a little late..."
"It’s fine, it’s fine. If it’s you, it can’t be helped."
There wasn’t anyone else nearby. The sweet scent of caramel tickled my nose, and I found myself wrapped in a strangely comforting atmosphere.
"Ah, hello..."
"Oh, uh, yeah. Nice to meet you."
After I sat at the round table and greeted Miel Norison, I turned to the last person there, Lee Seona, and said hello.
When I’d felt the mana erosion from far away, I’d definitely sensed the sparks of magic from her and Miel bickering with each other, but the moment I arrived and said I’d taken a detour, the noise had suddenly gone quiet.
"Um... if I keep a certain distance, is that more comfortable...?"
"... Huh?"
Ah. So that was it.
Unless they were someone I knew reasonably well, like Han Riae or Yoon Hwayeon, questions or even strange rumors about my anthropophobia were inevitable.
People might not understand why I’d take a detour because of a crowd, but for me even a little too much could trigger a seizure and knock me unconscious...
So I thought it was a fair question for Lee Seona, who didn’t know me very well.
"This distance is just right. Thank you for asking."
"R-right? I, uh, already ordered the drinks. Riae said you like chocolate, so I got you an iced chocolate. Is that okay?"
"Yes, of course. Thank you for ordering it."
"Good."
Lee Seona, who had been wearing an awkward smile, relaxed a little when she saw my reaction, and the three of us spent the next while exchanging simple conversation in a more comfortable tone.
After some time passed, a café employee set the drinks and a few light snacks on the table.
Miel Norison got a powdered-grain drink that matched the color of his hair, while Lee Seona had a tangy lemonade.
I took a sip of the chocolate drink I loved most and was basking in happiness when Lee Seona spoke.
"Well, I’m sure we all know this already, but we should at least introduce ourselves properly. My name is Lee Seona, I’m in the support major, and my unique ability is in the enchantment line. All right, Miel, your turn."
"Combat major, Miel Norison. My unique ability is, as you all know, coating my sword with mana."
Under Lee Seona’s lead, we began introducing ourselves, and since we’d already exchanged enough information while talking, it was over quickly.
"Special admissions student Lim Paran. My unique ability is... well, I don’t really have one, but I do have something similar to mana erosion."
I still hadn’t chosen a major, and I didn’t possess the sort of unique ability everyone else seemed to have, so my introduction came out a little awkwardly.
Miel Norison nodded vigorously as if he already knew, dutifully reacting to my introduction, and Lee Seona, looking as though she had something she wanted to ask, turned to me once I’d finished speaking.
"Hmm... then we need to decide our roles. If Miel is combat and I’m support, then Lim Paran, you’ll be the guide, right?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
Unlike Miel Norison, who showed no reaction at all to me, Lee Seona was analyzing my traits and assigning each of us our roles.
From a distance, anyone would probably think Lee Seona was the team leader of Team 9. But as if it were nothing unusual, she kept asking me questions.
"Then a guide should have some strengths in detection and general knowledge. What are your strengths?"
"Thanks to mana erosion, I can sense the mana around me much more clearly. If I focus, I can even tell what something is doing."
"Oh... then what’s your range?"
"If I want to, I can cover more than fifty meters. Though that’s only when there aren’t people around..."
"Whoa... that’s insane."
Lee Seona looked genuinely impressed by my answer.
Come to think of it, hunters with detection-type unique abilities were rare to begin with, and even when they did have one, it usually only let them sense that something was a certain distance away.
Even that much was considered a godsend for most people.
By contrast, even if it was a sickness, I could sense the vast mana around me and detect things at a much farther distance than others. And once I could feel the movement of mana, I could even determine what kind of object was there and what it was doing.
Since almost all monsters, magical tools, and mana stones gave off mana, and even if they didn’t they still contained mana, I could identify practically everything.
If you called it a unique ability, it would have been a top-tier one you couldn’t buy even for hundreds of billions of won.
"And Parang, if it comes to it, you can even be used as a combatant, right?"
"Yes... I’m lacking, but I can at least handle support well enough to do my share."
Miel Norison brought up our spar from the other day and added that I could take on more than one role.
It seemed the memory of fighting me then had left a strong impression on him.
"Good, good. Then Lim Paran is set as our guide. Hey, Miel, if you’re somehow horribly bad at fighting, I’ll leave you behind and fight myself, okay?"
"Heh~ Don’t worry about that."
The plan was settled without any trouble.
Because Team 9 had fewer members than the others, we would get bonus points for it, so we decided not to rush through the dungeon and instead take our time over two full days to make sure we cleared it properly.
The plan was to use my mana erosion on day one to map out the surrounding terrain and gather what we needed, then crush the core on day two and finish with as little point loss as possible.
Miel Norison chimed in occasionally during the planning, but some of his suggestions were so reckless that even I thought they were too much, and Lee Seona calmly shut them down as if she were used to it.
Even if Miel ended up collapsing, both Lee Seona and I were capable of fighting, so there was nothing to worry about.
"But what’s this? A compass?"
"It’s a magical tool for checking whether there are any abnormal symptoms nearby."
"Huh?! Isn’t this a mana battery? This must be really expensive!"
After checking each other’s supplies and finishing the final preparations, we headed to the hologram entry room located in the lobby of Sielm Academy.
All dungeons were actualized after their difficulty had been lowered through the authority of the Tower of Growth, which made it possible to turn the high-level dungeons currently being conquered into something approachable for practice.
That meant the dungeon we were about to challenge was one that was already being cleared in the real world, complete with its original high difficulty.
Hunters who watched how we tackled it might use our methods as reference, and even if something serious happened, we could just follow the hunters’ movements. It worked out well for both sides.
When we arrived at the gate and registered our information, Lee Seona, who had been behind me right before I stepped through, spoke up.
"If you collapse after going through, can I carry you? Riae asked me to..."
"Ah, yes. I’d appreciate that."
Maybe Han Riae had told her about the time I’d fainted while passing through a gate, because she asked me carefully, hesitating a little as she waited for my answer.
I didn’t need to worry about it anymore, but thinking of the kindness I’d just been shown, I thanked her.
And after passing through the gate, the thing we’d been worried about did not happen.
"Where am I...?"
Because I’d ended up separated from the others from the start.
* * *
As he watched Lim Paran pass through the gate, the instant the boy’s form disappeared, the dense, pure mana that had been sensed nearby hid its presence.
Dungeon practicum was, in a sense, training; even if professors wanted to help, they couldn’t interfere recklessly in the isolated pocket dimension.
Even if it was called a hologram in name, worry still remained.
"Oh? Seres! What are you doing here? The one who just went in was Team 9... don’t tell me..."
"Ahem. Keep your voice down."
After confirming that Lim Paran had entered safely, Seres had been about to turn and leave in a hurry, but Han Seohwa, the homeroom professor in charge of Wolchun Class, had been watching the students enter and spotted Seres’ figure, then came striding over.
"See? I told you he was more delicate than he looked. Heh heh heh."
"Shut up, I said!"
Han Seohwa’s rainbow-bright eyes flashed even more brilliantly as she poured mana into a message spell that struck Professor Seres squarely in the ear.
"I’ve actually been watching since just now, but weren’t you watching him from hours ago? Isn’t that a little too overprotective?"
"Urgh..."
"You could at least have said, ‘Go and come back safely,’ once, couldn’t you?"
"And what if that just put pressure on him?"
"Sometimes encouragement like that really helps, you know?"
Seres couldn’t properly refute Han Seohwa’s words.
It was true that he was the kind of professor who gave more stick than carrot, but even so, he should probably have given him at least a little carrot.
But...
I’ll definitely live up to your expectations, so please look forward to it!
The unpleasant memory surfaced so suddenly that he didn’t want to think about it any further.
"If you’ve got time to spare, want to drink? You did have some in the Magic Border, after all."
"This is Sielm. Let’s keep the drinking under control."
"Aw~ No one’s watching, since all the first-years are out at practicum."
Han Seohwa offered him a sweet temptation, and Seres tried his best to refuse...
"I’ve even prepared your favorite, Soda Crimson, and we can talk about the blue-haired student too... huh? Where did he go?"
"What are you dawdling for? Hurry up and come."
"What the—"
He had fallen for the bait, lured by the promise of his favorite alcohol and important information.
Again, he’d simply been lured.
There was absolutely no way he was going because he wanted to.
